Democracy for New Mexico

(Updated) Saturday: Help Celebrate Opening of Obama Campaign's South Valley Office

New Obama Ad: Real Change

Update: Belen Native U.S. Rep. Joe Baca (D-CA), Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, has been added to the list of elected officials who'll be welcoming attendees at the Grand Opening
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Come on down and check out this weekend's grand opening of the Obama Campaign's South Valley Office -- the 34th such office in New Mexico. The celebration will feature food, live music, and appearances by the following elected officials:

U.S. Rep. Joe Baca, Chair, Congressional Hispanic Caucus
State Auditor Hector Balderas
State Senator-Elect Eric Griego
State Senator Linda Lopez
Martin Heinrich, NM-01 Congressional candidate

Obama South Valley Office Grand Opening
Saturday, September 13, 5 to 7 PM
3211 Coors Blvd. SW, Suite A 3-4, ABQ, 87121 Map
RSVP for this event

The New Mexico Campaign for Change is building a culture of participation and empowerment, and this new office is another step toward that goal. If you can't make it to the grand opening, you’re more than welcome to stop by and check out the office in the coming days and find out about volunteer opportunities.

The South Valley Field Office is one of more than 25 offices in the state. View a complete list of New Mexico offices. This will be a great opportunity to learn what we can do to support the Obama Campaign and to talk about what is needed to win the South Valley and all of New Mexico. Please come and help bring in the South Valley for Sen. Barack Obama!

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McCain-Palin: Liars and Hypocrites

Can you believe that any thinking humans actually believe these pushers of doubletalk and outright lies? I guess they hear what they want to hear. They want to hear that it's somebody's else's fault and that nothing will be required of them in order to get things fixed. They are hearing it alright. Let's see how many suckers are out there when all is said and done. To believe what McCain and Palin are saying these days takes a gargantuan amount of denial. Imagine what kind of fear and insecurity fuels that kind of purposeful cluelessness ....

Quote of the Day: Take a Deep Breath

Polls, schmolls. Look at the big picture and just keep working. Remember, after his Convention, Michael Dukakis was almost 20 points ahead of his R opponent. In other words, polling at this point, whether for the prez or down-ticket races -- is fluid and often meaningless. If voters are still lukewarm about their candidate or still undecided, it's the debates that will make the difference. Can't wait. Can you imagine any of the R candidate doing well in debates? Me either.

"If the Obama brain trust seems relatively serene compared with its seething base, it’s because they live in the Electoral College world, where the presidential race only takes place in a third of the country. They don’t care about national polls — a concept as quaint as measuring one’s wealth by caribou pelts. They worry about the undecided vote in Minnesota and Ohio and run their TV ads (about the economy) in places like Colorado and Michigan and Florida. If you live in California or New York or Texas, you don’t really have much of a feel for their level of effort because as far as they’re concerned, you’ve already voted." --Gail Collins, NY Times Op-Ed Columnist

Guest Blog by Stephen Fox: September 11, Tom Udall, What Obama Needs to Do to Win

This is a guest blog by Stephen Fox of Santa Fe. This piece is cross-posted at Stephen's MyBarackObama blog, where you can read more of his writing.

U.S. Representative Tom Udall, D-NM, released the following statement today in solemn remembrance of the tragedies of September 11, 2001:

"September 11 is a day that invokes immense sadness in all of us. Today, we remember the pain that we felt seven years ago. But Americans learned something about ourselves on September 11, 2001, and what we learned should make us all proud. We learned that, in America, when we find ourselves face-to-face with tragedy, we know a simple truth: we are our brothers' keepers; we are our sisters' keepers.

We know that an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. That if one American dies needlessly, we are all diminished by that loss. As we mark this somber day, let us take comfort in that lesson: whatever our enemies do to us, Americans will stick together. And we will not be defeated."

My own recollection/observation was after 9/11 when the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar al Saud, donated a check for many millions of dollars to the 9/11 victims fund, as I recall $10 million, and accompanying the check was a letter in which he made many points, and among them was the question of the United States' need to figure out what it might have done to cause this ghastly disaster and act of terrorism.

That was too much for Rudy Giuliani, who immediately returned the check to Bandar, objecting very vociferously to Bandar's his commentary.

When I read about this in the New York Times, I immediately recognized this as Giuliani's error, but we all throughout life recognize this uniquely human trait of not being able to accept responsibility (or even a hint of a discussion of responsibility) by someone who is in some kind of serious trouble. It is just too much for them to deal with.....

The Saudi passport of Saeed Alghamdi, said to be discovered in the wreckage of Flight 93.

Steel beams from the WTC were already being removed and recycled on September 20, 2001. [Source: Associated Press]

A chunk of hot metal being removed from the North Tower rubble about eight weeks after 9/11. [Source: Frank Silecchia]

From left to right: Dick Cheney, Prince Bandar, Condoleezza Rice, and George W. Bush, on the Truman Balcony of the White House on September 13, 2001. [Source: White House]

Bandar certainly should have had some keen insights into these matters; from Wikipedia, in italics:

[Prince Bandar has formed close relationships with several American presidents, notably George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, who gave him the affectionate and controversial nickname "Bandar Bush". His friendship with Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne Cheney, extends to the years before Cheney took office as the United States Vice President. Prince Bandar invited the Cheney family to his daughter's wedding in the 1990s, but they did not attend.

The close relationship with the Bush family is also described in Craig Unger's book House of Bush, House of Saud and is highlighted in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11....

Prince Bandar has endured controversy over allegations in the book Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward that President George W. Bush informed him of the decision to invade Iraq ahead of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Also, the book alleged a deal had been worked out to reduce oil prices just ahead of the November 2004 election. Bandar publicly endorsed President Bush.

On June 26, 2005, Prince Bandar reportedly submitted his resignation as ambassador to the United States for "personal reasons".[4][5] Bandar's return to Saudi Arabia was announced weeks prior to the death of King Fahd upon which Bandar's father, Sultan bin Abdul Aziz became the nation's Crown Prince. It has been rumoured that Bandar's return was timed in order to secure a position in the new government.[6] In October 2005 he became the kingdom's national security chief.]

What happened? According to another source; "Saudi princesses are no less benevolent than their husbands, brothers and cousins. Ambassador-Prince Bandar's own wife Princess Haifa, daughter of the late King Feisal, received a letter from an unknown woman telling of problems with medical bills. The Princess-Ambassadress dashed her off a check in six figures -- and the money by some strange route ended up among the resources of the perpetrators of the September 11 atrocities. The revelation so upset Her Royal Highness that various sympathetic Washington ladies rushed their condolences and sympathy to her -- including Mrs. George H.W. Bush and Mrs. Colin Powell. "

I am not a 9/11 conspiracy kind of guy/paranoid, not at all. I concluded long ago that even talking about such was a waste of time, my time at least....

However, having said that, since September 11, 2001, I do believe we have a lot of evidence of how our hostility about Islam now has alienated most of the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, about 60 nations; it is obvious that the Chinese have run rings around us in terms of investment and economic policy throughout most of the world, particularly in Africa; it is screamingly obvious that American excursions into Iraq along with most of the US wars since 1945 have been in essence imperialistic in nature, and as such have earned us increasing hostility; one British tourist visiting Santa Fe compared the British in Ireland to the Americans in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

"If you kill their mothers and children and cousins and brothers over several years, pretty soon the entire nation becomes terrorists."

I do believe that the core of this Modern History was all essentially delineated by Marx, Engels, and especially by Hegel, in his discussions of Dialectical Materialism.

All those ISM's and the thesis/antithesis/synthesis processes make perfect sense to me in explaining the History of Economic Systems; it is clear to me that when Big Pharma and Big Junk Food corporations and their hired guns/lobbyists effectively take over the regulatory processes of a nation, like they have done with the FDA, that we are doomed in health, in history, in medical and consumer credibility, and in economic well-being.

I have written a lot of articles on related subjects, particularly consumer protection, aspartame, and Donald Rumsfeld's having forced through the FDA the approval for aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde, so he could make $12-20 million personal profit, the health of hundreds of millions of people be damned....

I won't regale you with this on this solemn occasion, but allow me to recall a lecture in Santa Fe a few years ago by former President of Poland and Nobel Laureate Lech Walesa to the effect that the USA has lost its moral stature in toto as well as most of its political power, squandered its economic power in order to preserve and just barely maintain its military power, which was no replacement for moral, political, or economic power. That was quite brilliant, truly.

Similarly, DNC Chairman and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean III, M.D., was recently in Santa Fe to fire up the troops, and one thing in particular stuck with me, when he said no nation could bring peace in any conflict unless it had the moral authority to sit at the negotiating table.

We don't have that power and that moral authority throughout most of the world right now, thanks to the past 8 years of Bush/Cheney/Neocon/Blackwater/Halliburton/Kellogg Brown, and Root mode of economics and government economic policies.

I really don't believe that in general Economics nor specifically that Macro Economic insights from government economic advisors, for example, qualify as rocket science.

It is more akin to the old irrigation system of colonial New Mexico, in which the farmer who controlled the flow of the irrigation ditch, or ACEQUIA MADRE ("MOTHER DITCH" in Spanish) determined which field the water would flow into. He was called the Majordomo, and in that society, was much more important than any Mayor, or "ALCALDE" in Spanish.

That is what has happened during the past 8 years. The White House and other government masters of the flow of monies have purposefully turned the irrigation ditch waters into such things as military, defense contractors, weapons, hardware, security, etc.

What was in that other field, the one that got neglected and deprived of water?

Just about everything else: education, inner cities, highway maintenance and construction, infrastructure, huge realms of scientific and medical research like stem cell research, etc. You name it: our American economy is in terrible shape, and with the way our international respect has deteriorated, squarely because of Bush and Cheney, it might get a lot worse....the signs are everywhere; they are well known and they are easily recognized: endemic mortage failures, high gas prices, a deflated stock market, high unemployment, failed schools especially in the inner city, store closings, et. alia.

Much of this election hinges on our ability to change all of that, to put America back on a sane and internationally effective tack, and that is at a minimum, just to ensure our survival as a nation.

That is why I want to see Dr. Dean be the Obama Cabinet Secretary for Health or as FDA Commissioner, and that is why I want to see NM Governor Bill Richardson as the next Secretary of State. I think also that Jerry Brown of California would make a great consumer protection-oriented United States Attorney General, one who would also reconstruct all of our civil liberties.

Such speculations are of course something else entirely, but I am certain that Obama should discuss such things seriously and frequently, ignoring the advice of some who say that that would be ridiculed by the right wing as "presumptuous" or as "arrogant," so that the American people can gain some glimmer of an insight into what he really would like to achieve as President, in terms of names, both possible and real and well known names.

Will Obama win?
To get to that victory, I work day and night as a member of 328 Obama groups, coordinating correspondence, and urging people to not just "preach to the choir," as that is how Democrats usually lose elections, but to get out there and go door to door to tell folks how much is really at stake in this election, plus my special focus: Letters to the Editor, Opinion/Editorials, and so on, all over the United States, wherever they could be published.

Surprising how few people comprehend this in only a few states, and in not many of the so-called BATTLEGROUND STATES, for Obama and for US Senate candidates, as described in my blog about a week ago in the letter from Senator Charles Schumer.

I am going to take a break from all of this furious emailing, so you won't hear from me for a while.

I will conclude with a few paragraphs written today, not by me, but an astute observer and friend of mine,who wishes to remain anonymous, about 50 years old, a realtor, former actress, and thinker:

Recently, I was on a flight to Texas and sat next to a very personable and fairly astute guy. We began talking politics and went back and forth about the issues. He was really impressed by my research and said so.

Then he leaned over to me and whispered conspiratorially, "I concede all the points but Obama is a Muslim, you know."

And when I calmly explained that that particular lie fed on our basest fears, he held up Reverend Wright as proof. This scene has been repeated numerous times with different characters but the underlying emotional message is clear and powerful. Their winning on a gut level. They are afraid and the facts don't matter.

Obama is perceived as "the other."

The Republicans have clearly defined him emotionally and he must wrest these irrational pictures away from them and supplant them with powerful and soothing reassurance.

Obama may loose this election if he does not connect on a visceral level soon. He must capture the emotional narrative and stop trying to be only reasonable. People do not reason their way into the voting booth. They move from the gut.

He has much "low-hanging fruit" to choose from. Sarah Palin is a right-wing fundamentalist wack-job. She is an extremist and Americans of all stripes are uncomfortable with extremism. John McCain has abandoned every "maverick" position he's ever held.

It's all on video, from her prayers to the oil pipeline god to the massively naked ambition which has led him to do a 180 on every major political stance of his past. Use Their Own Words To Out This Outrageous Hypocricy. Draw passionate simple pictures once again and reframe this narrative, from the gut. It's the only way. "

Obama has to win!

This is a guest blog by Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor of the New Mexico Sun News and founder of New Millennium Fine Art, a Santa Fe gallery since 1980. Guest blogs provide an opportunity for readers to express themselves on topics of interest to the political discourse here, and may or may not express the views of the DFNM blog. If you'd like to submit a post for consideration as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link on the upper left-hand corner of the page.

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Get Your Obamanos Bumperstickers

From Ellen Wedum of Cloudcroft, who's running for state rep in HD 59: This distinctive bumpersticker is the inspiration of retired engineer Joyce Westerbur, former vice-chair of the Lincoln County Dems, who requested a design from bumperactive.com. They are going like hotcakes down here south of I-40. I bought 200 and have already sold (at cost) about 100 of them at the Otero and Dona Ana Labor Breakfasts. Anyone who wants some can order them from kyle@bumperactive.com. I like having an Obama bumper sticker that is uniquely New Mexico.

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NM-02: Talking About Guns, Tinsley Says He Has a "Rude Awakening" for Obama

Ed Tinsley, the GOP's Congressional candidate in NM-02 who's running against Democrat Harry Teague, has been caught in the act again. Tinsley's latest inflammatory remarks -- and what can be perceived as a threat to Barack Obama -- came at a recent candidate forum in Roswell. Tinsley was asked about his views on gun ownership and the Second Amendment. Instead of talking about his or his opponent's positions on the issue, Tinsley launched into a disturbing attack on presidential candidate Barack Obama, as you can see in the video clip above. Ed Tinsley said:

Well, I'll say this, somebody that certainly doesn't get it is Barack Obama when he says that our district clings to our guns and our religion out of frustration. I have a rude awakening for him and we'd love to have him as a guest at our ranch.

Check out Tinsley's demeanor when he says the words "rude awakening." What do you think he has in mind when he says it? What do you think his words are meant to convey?

Making such statements is getting to be a disturbing habit with Ed Tinsley. This isn't the first time he's demonstrated a penchant for brutal and violence-tinged rhetoric. For instance, in 2002 when running in the GOP Congressional primary in NM-02, Tinsley was asked about his views on the death penalty. He answered,

"I would certainly like to take the people out and drag them behind my horse until their head popped off."

The Albuquerque Journal printed the quote and Steve Pearce, Tinsley's primary rival back then, used it against him. Pearce -- no shrinking violet in the inflammatory rhetoric department himself -- ended up winning the primary and the Congressional seat. (Pearce is now running for U.S. Senate in New Mexico.) The voters of New Mexico's Second District evidently didn't cotton to cruel talk like that back then, and I doubt they'll do so now.

Last month, Tinsley earned Worst Person in the World status on Keith Olbermann's Countdown and gained notoriety across the web for his nasty and personal statement at a candidate forum in Las Cruces -- where he said of his Dem competitor, Harry Teague,

"How am I supposed to call my two nephews over there [in Iraq] right now ... and tell them I'm running against a guy who will cut your throat!"

You can read about that incident in my previous posts here and here.

In an election cycle when genuine threats to Obama are not uncommon, it's downright scary to have a candidate for the U.S Congress make a statement that, at the very least, takes a threatening tone towards the Democratic presidential nominee. What is in Ed Tinsley's head -- and in his heart -- if he can make the kind of statements I've cited without blinking an eye? Tinsley likes to talk about All-American values, but his remarks seem to reveal a much darker view of the world -- a place where vigilante might makes right and fear tactics are employed without shame. Maybe that's why Dick Cheney will be down in Harry Teague's hometown of Hobbs later this month to raise money for Tinsley. Two Darth Vader peas in a pod.

Don't want a Congressman from New Mexico who talks like a reckless bully? Help get Harry Teague elected to represent NM-02. Click here to donate or volunteer.

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New Obama Ad: WHOA! (and Palin's First Major Gaffe)

Crack that whip! Yeee, haaaa. Time to call a huckster ticket a huckster ticket. And time to get involved if you want real change in America and not a lobbyist-concocted mirage.

Oh, and by the way Ms. Palin has already made a whopper of a gaffe talking about Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Maybe she should talk to McCain's former top economic advisor, Phil Gramm, who masterminded so much of the banking and mortage deregulation that has brought us to this precipice. Go read about Foreclosure Phil and ponder how he's shaped McCain's positions on the economy. Oh right, maverick.

(Updated) Palin's Religious Freak Show and The Press

Wish we had a candidate like this one on Biblical matters

Update: Turns out a Corrales resident asked Palin and McCain some questions during their short photo-op at El Pinto yesterday. AmericaBlog has their first-person account.
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I know we're all supposed to be locked into a contemplation on the types of salsa purchased by McCain and Palin at El Pinto in the North Valley yesterday, or pondering the deep meaning of Whitesnake music being played at the McCain-Palin rally at the Albuquerque Convention Center Saturday. I know that some in this town think Palin neighbor Anne Kilkenney's fair but critical piece About Sarah Palin is annoying, but I suggest reading it anyway if you haven't yet done so. However, I think it might be most useful to consider some of the excruciatingly odd religious connections that have shaped Palin's world views -- such as they are.

Consider her long-time and continuing associations with outliers in the Assemblies of God - Pentacostal - Dominionist - Joel's Army - Third Wave end-timer movement. Palin's religious connections aren't with your garden variety Christian fundamentalists, but with the truly extreme reaches of the Christian right. I won't regurgitate the info here. You can read it for yourself in this article (with video) on Alternet for starters. There's also this diary on Kos that provides a roadmap to the Dominionist underground and lots of helpful links. It's a tangled up, rapture-fueled, Christian Nation hullabaloo alright, and Palin is definitely hooked in. Scary stuff. But even worse ...

Do you think Charlie Gibson, who embarrassed himself so badly with his phenomenally weird questions and proselytizing at a couple of Dem prez primary debates, will delve into this aspect of Palin's political-world view when he's granted the very first "press" interview with Palin? Naw, he'll no doubt be lobbing her softball questions and hanging on her every word about the ins and outs of her mooseburger consumption and how she and McCain are "mavericks" who just happen to have supported almost every single Bushie policy position until they started positioning themselves to head the GOP ticket.

Remember when The Press saw its mission as puncturing propaganda so citizens would be privy to the truth? Now the majority of "journalists" seem to be just a photo-op seeking, soundbite collecting mob of celebrity groupies who avoid rocking the boat so they can keep their "access." Access meaning their first-row seats in the ambulance celebrity chasing squad where they are lured with promises of interviews that usually don't materialize. Thank goodness there are some "pushy" reporters still out there, like Peter St. Cyr, who risked the wrath of the powers that be by daring to ask Palin a question or two yesterday. Sure, they were innocuous start-up questions, but I know Peter would have gone deeper if he hadn't been ordered to stop by political handlers. I say hurrah for daring to go up to Palin and ask anything in this stifling environment. St. Cyr was the only one who got to Palin, and he's a radio reporter.

You can have just about every one of the local TV and print reporters here. I'll follow St. Cyr's audio blog and the ever-improving live reports by Matt at anyday before I delve into the dribble on our local TV news or in the Albuquerque Journal. I'll check on reports from writers like Marjorie Childress and Tracy Dingmann at the NMI blog before I'll take the word of any trad reporter on a story. The good news is that as the trad media collapses, the independent internet media improves.

One of the most revealing experiences I had at the Dem Convention in Denver was hanging out in the venue's bowels where press of all levels, including many members of the national TV media, were ensconsed. It was like watching fisherman throwing chum into the water to lure the sharks. Every so often a whispered rumor would sweep through the press corps about some maybe or maybe not chance to get a sound bite or a video clip from a politico. A long parade of journalists would start sprinting toward some designated portal, often with large entourages trailing. Often, the rumored chance for pouncing was just a fake out and the media folks would come shuffling back, dejected and destined to resume the long wait for anything to "happen," newswise. I could just picture the politicos' press people giggling at the cattle stampedes they could start with just a whisper of an opportunity to see a Very Important Politico in the flesh.

Watching the melodrama, it became very clear to me just how powerless the trad media has become in this era of controlled politico marketing-advertising-PR. No wonder the average voter is so uninformed and ready to swallow the latest BS whole. Can our democracy survive it? In November, we'll get a number of clues when the results come rolling in. Will ordinary Americans vote with the facts in hand or will they succumb completely to the propaganda onslaught? I'm not making any bets quite yet, but I'm getting more nervous by the day.

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Guest Blog: Vote, Baby, Vote ... Are You Registered, Baby?

Rachel N. Rodriguez talks about her experience becoming a voter registrar today

This is a guest blog by Rachel N. Rodriguez of Albuquerque. Also see her previous guest blog about attending Friday's Michelle Obama rally at UNM.

By October 7 at 5 PM, anyone who wants to vote in the presidential election must be registered. That's the deadline -- just one very short month from tomorrow.

If you're wondering how you can help get Obama in the White House (as well as NM Dems in office), show up at the Nob Hill Obama office -- right there on the corner of Carlisle and Central -- at 10:45 AM next Saturday to get yourself "deputized" to register others to vote. It's ridiculously easy, and it's critically important!

I showed up this morning at the training, and by the time the County Clerk's representative showed up -- an hour late due to the fact that the earlier training at another office had 88 people attend! -- the office was overflowing with folks wanting to get deputized. The training was short and simple, and the paperwork easy and quick. A notary signed my paper and used her stamp, and I was done!

Obama Nob Hill campaign office today with people signing up to be voter registrars

Other things we can do to help:

1. Sign up to vote by mail. This is being pushed hard so we can beat the R's in voting by mail.


2. Encourage others to vote by mail.


3. Be part of the "99" program - talk to 99 people between now and the election about Obama (and NM Dems!)


4. Take an hour or two each week to volunteer at the Obama office -- calling folks on the phone, entering data, going door-to-door.


5. Call the Obama office at 425-0723 to get linked into the folks working in YOUR neighborhood to help put Obama in the White House.

And, if you are itching to donate stuff and money, they can use it. Phones are especially needed as an important "voter contact tool" -- if you have $125 burning a hole in your pocket, you can go to (or call) the Cricket store on Menaul and purchase a phone for the campaign to use.

Whatever you do, it will make a difference!

Rachel N. Rodriguez
rachelnrodriguez AT yahoo.com

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Sierra Club Weighs in on McCain Remarks on Energy at Albuquerque Rally

Note: Read the live blog at for more on the McCain-Palin appearance at the Albuquerque Convention Center last night (with photos). Also listen to Peter St. Cyr's audio of the short speeches by McCain and Palin.

Must Read: I just got this release from the Sierra Club NM Club NM and it tells the story so well, I'm going to publish it verbatim:

At a ‘Road to Victory’ rally in Albuquerque this evening, Senator John McCain advocated for the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel as a way to deal with the tons of high-level nuclear waste accumulating at reactors around the country. However, he failed to mention America’s troubled past with reprocessing – namely, tanks of liquid waste that are corroding and threatening nearby bodies of water (Columbia and Savannah Rivers as well as Snake River Aquifer). McCain also neglected to mention that France and the UK simply pipe their liquid wastes from reprocessing directly into the North and Irish seas to the ire of neighboring countries, and that reprocessing has not significantly reduced the need for a deep geological repository (Institute for Energy & Environmental Research, www.ieer.org/fctsheet/repro-intl.html).

McCain also advocated for greater solar power production, but failed to mention that he did not show up to any of the eight votes held this year on extending clean energy tax credits. About 2,000 construction jobs with the Solana concentrating solar project in McCain’s home state of Arizona are on hold as a result. Similarly, McCain’s opposition to a national Renewable Electricity Standard has cost New Mexicans at least 2,800 new jobs in the solar and wind industries, $200 million in lower electricity and natural gas bills by 2020 (growing to nearly $400 million by 2030), and another $100 million in income to farmers, ranchers, and rural landowners (Union of Concerned Scientists, Cashing in on Clean Energy in New Mexico).

Statement of Shrayas Jatkar, Sierra Club NM

“Despite efforts to claim that they are mavericks and agents of change, the McCain/Palin campaign continues to simply reach for the costly and dirty energy policies of the past.”

“It is highly irresponsible for the McCain/Palin campaign to advocate for the reprocessing of spent fuel when we have not yet dealt with the wastes generated by reprocessing in the past. New Mexicans defeated in 2007 a Bush Administration scheme to resume reprocessing - which listed two sites in southeastern New Mexico as potential hosts for a reprocessing plant – because no community can afford to sacrifice its public health and water sources for a dangerous, dirty, and costly technology.”

“The McCain/Palin campaign must stop misleading voters about their supposed support for clean energy development. Their voting record clearly shows a failure to stand up for the solar and wind industries – and the hundreds of thousands of workers in those industries – when it truly counts.”

Want to learn more facts about John McCain and his real views? Visit JustMoreoftheSame.com.

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